Re: Off topic: New Year's frivolity

[Caballero Carlo.Caballero@xxxxxxxx]

Thanks, Patricia, for a change of pace.

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, Patricia M Godfrey wrote:
>
> But what, what does one call something that is what it discusses? The
> only other example I can think of is Swinburne's Roundel beginning "A
> roundel is wrought..." (Fowler cites it under technical terms; I
> shouldn't want anyone to think I READ Swinburne.) I mean a specific term,
> like anacoluthon, hysteron proteron, hendiadys, and the like. I'm sure
> there's one, but I cannot think of it.
>

The name? I don't know. But long before Swinburne was Pope's "Essay on
Criticism" (of "The sound must seem an echo to the sense" fame). Sample:

These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

Also:
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.


> But I hate to tell you, there are people out there who do not know what
> scansion means. They cannot hear meter.

Indeed. My wife and I have to wince sometimes in reading aloud some
recent children's books whose authors seem to think that all you need is a
rhyme (and a bad one at that). Meter--what's that?

And speaking of the dangers of rhyme, here's Verlaine's "Art Poétique,"
another work in the self-interpreting genre:

Prends l'éloquence et tords-lui son cou!
Tu feras bien, en train d'énergie,
De rendre un peu la Rime assagie.
Si l'on n'y veille, elle ira jusqu'où?

Cheers,
Carlo